We have no control in midfield. There is far too much of a gap between all the lines (def, mid, att) forcing us to play the long pass (low percentage) all the time. Basically we are playing like an EPL team and it sucks. I could go on, but I just don't have the energy. Whatever plan Martino has, the players are struggling to understand it. We are not set up and do not have the players to play this style. We will run into teams who are set up to play this way and he is going to get found out pretty damn quickly.
Firstly I want to say, that Barca did not play a double pivot yesterday. Anyone who thinks they did, wasn't watching the match closely enough. Yes song was playing, but he was always more advanced than Busquets, and he actually pressured the celta vigo midfield very well.
Secondly. Celta Vigo just beat Malaga 5-0 at the weekend. We on the other hand had to play in a grueling classico match, which would have took a lot out of the team. Cesc is a good passer, but he isn't a replacement for Xavi yet, and Song is never going to be Iniesta. Those two changes alone result in us having less ball control in the midfield. Then you can also factor in that the players who were not changed from the Real game, such as busquets and messi, will be tired.
Your final point must be a joke. The reason teams "figured out," our primary strategy, is because we had nothing else to offer, nothing else could threaten the other team. It meant that teams like Bayern could press high and press aggressively, and we would end up losing the ball in dangerous positions and conceeding. The reason they could do this is because there was literally no risk, no down side to them pressing. We had no players making deeper runs and moving into advanced positions, so we couldn't hold them back with the threat of a good vertical pass.
To suggest we are playing like EPL is horrendous. Since when did we get a 6 foot 4 centre forward, who we lump it to at every opportunity?
exactly. and we shouldnt forget how many amazing saves valdez has pulled out in those MOTM performances. otherwise half of them who are praising tata would have been in the other side criticizing him.
Im not hating him but the praise he`s getting is abit much i think.
Valdez has not pulled off an extraordinary amount of saves. Yes in the Classico he made some world class saves, but you expect a few of them from a world class keeper. The fact is that Tata has had an excellent, near perfect, start to the season, and many of the problems we had last year don't seem to exist any more. We are pressing high up the team again, hence our defensive record has improved, and we create more chances now that we have more players moving into advanced positions.
I can understand why people may have looked at the Celta Vigo game last night and thought that it was a different barcelona. But the simple fact is that we were still playing possession football. The reason it looked so direct is actually down to celta more than it is to barca's tactics. They left huge gaps in between their midfield and defense, and with Tata encouraging players to move into advanced positions when there is space, it meant that practically every time barcelona had the ball, there was a good option to pass the ball forwards.
I would like to reiterate something Pep said before a Champions League game. Barcelona do not play possession football to look fancy, or because it looks good. We play possession football because we believe it is the most effective football for us to play and for us to win.
With that in mind, it would be counter productive to decide that we should purposely waste time passing the ball around the defense and midfield, when our attacking players have moved into advanced positions and are in plenty of space. It is not like we were lumping 40 yard long balls in the general direction of our attacking players whilst they jostled with the centre backs to win the aerial ball. We were playing passes into attackers who were in space to advance and create goal scoring chances. The reason it didn't look as refined, and our ball retention wasn't as crisp as usual, was because we were playing with Song and Cesc in midfield as apposed to Xavi and Iniesta...
Tata himself came from a team that played pressing possession football, he won the argentine league as a manager by playing pressing possession football, I don't think he is going to come the mecca of possession football and then decide to go back on everything and turn us into a direct football team. Some of the people seem to have no faith in him as a manager, yet he has had a better start than any barca manager, and has already shown he is more competent than Tito in terms of tactics.
As a few examples from the Real game:
1. Normally Pique plays RCB and Mascherano LCB. For the Real game, he reversed this, so that when Real were on the counter attack, Macherano was on the same side as Ronaldo, because as we have seen in previous classico's Ronaldo exploits Piques lack of pace brutally. He even had the sense to swap them back around whenever Ronaldo swapped wings. This was a tactical decision that managed to relatively keep reigns on the second best player in the world. Nothing to be sniffed at.
2. Real often play with 3 Centre backs, one in the DCM position, to allow one the freedom of movement to follow Messi when he drops deep. This means that Messi has to drop deeper to receive the ball in space, and therefore reduces his ability to create goal scoring chances. The solution? put Messi on the right wing moving inside. He can still drop into the midfield like he usually does, but when he goes wide out on the wing he often found himself in lots of space with only one defender to beat. The by-product of this was that firstly, messi wasn't as effective as usual, as his best position is the false nine, and he seemed to be having an off day. However, the second result, was that Real set up their defense much more biased towards the left hand side as an insurance policy to make sure Messi didn't influence the game. It resulted in them being very stretched across the back and meant Neymar had room to terrorize on the opposite wing.
The guy knows exactly what he is doing in my opinion, I'm really happy to see some tactical decisions made, rather than Tito's approach which was to just put the best 11 players out and tell them to get on with it.
